Sunday, June 20, 2010

Building A True-Cost Economy

Guess what? The prices we use to measure the value of goods don't accurately reflect their true value. Surprised? While it's probably impossible to internalize every cost into a good's price, there are certain well-known costs that are systemically left out:

People might think they're getting a sweet deal by paying less for gasoline, for example, but in fact these externalized costs are assumed by someone, somewhere, in various forms. This raises serious concerns about fairness, especially when dealing with corporations, which have a massive incentive to externalize as much as possible to reduce the sticker price of their products.